The relation between timeliness and the usefulness of the accounting information and the mechanisms of Corporative Governance: evidence in the Brazilian market
Abstract
This paper aims at verifying the relation between timeliness and the usefulness of the accounting information and the mechanisms of corporative governance of the Brazilian companies with stocks negotiated in the São Paulo Stock Exchange. We searched for evidence of the influence of the environment of Governance on the relevance of accounting as an information system. We used one of the models proposed by Bushman et al. (2004). The samples used in the analyzes were composed by the companies that are part of the Brazilian shareholding market. The companies are classified into the different levels of corporative governance of the São Paulo Stock Exchange. According to the results, the hypothesis that “in the Brazilian market, the more complex and the more expensive the mechanisms of corporative governance, the more reduced the timeliness and the usefulness of the accounting information” cannot be accepted. The evidence found refers to the existing differences between Brazil and the United States in relation to the structure of the stock market, the legal environment, the accounting regulations, the enforcement, the sources of financing, etc. The evidence in Brazil is contrary to the evidence in the U.S. and suggests that the governance mechanisms in Brazil are implemented to reduce the management of accounting results (earnings management) and to avoid the manipulation of data. We observed that the Brazilian companies that have some level of special corporative governance present useful and timely accounting information influencing the economic returns of the companies to a certain extent. We should emphasize that the size of the sample in some analyzes makes the inferences not so consistent; however, this is a limitation for any research that demands data from the Brazilian stock market.
Key words: timeliness, accounting information, corporative governance.
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